Scarlet Begonias
by BeautifulLily
Summary: He loved her free spirit. He loved her long and curly mane of hair and her sun splattered face with the nosegem he wanted to kiss off. He loved how she was full of the life he had been deprived of. WARNING: LilySeverus.


_As I was walkin' down rubadub square   
Not a chill to the window a little to the air   
From another direction she was caught in my eye   
It could be an illusion, but I might as well try   
..might as well try _   
Severus Snape sat alone in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express, scowling. His mother had been too sick to show him through like when she had attended Hogwarts so his father pushed him into the car and drove them over to the train station.   
_"Now you listen to me, Severus," his father growled, his breath reeked of alcohol, and his car and clothes stank of rape. "You are not to misbehave at this school, and if you do, you'll regret it. Both you and your mother will."  
Severus nodded, eyes downcast, and reached for the door but his father's grip on his arm refused.  
"Did you hear me?" he roared and Severus tried not to wince. His father tightened and now Severus' arm went half numb. He was forced to look into the eyes of his abuser, his nightmare, his godforsaken father. He was shoved out of the car, trunk hastily thrown next to him and the car rushed off, dodging in and out of traffic._   
"Excuse me? Is it alright if I sit here?" a small voice, woven with cautiousness and suspicion yet strong and polite, sounded. Severus looked up and swallowed as he saw a girl, about his age, smiling softly. She had long curly hair all the way down her back and in the richest auburn he had laid his eyes on. Freckles were littered across her face, full of life and a pair of brilliantly green eyes shown through two pairs of lashes. Her shirt was a bright yellow and blue, obviously a jersey from a muggle football team. She was also wearing a pair of jeans that fell to her heels and he could make out that her calves were very toned and muscular. A pair of sneakers peeked out from the bottoms of her flares.  
"Um...alright. I'll just find another compartment," the girl shrugged and swiftly left the doorway, her trunk rolling behind her. Severus figured he must've been looking her over for too long a time. Now he regretted doing that because she seemed really nice and she was rather pretty and he thought she might've made a good friend.   
_She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes   
And I could tell without asking she was into the blues   
She wore scarlet begonias tucked into her curls   
I knew right away she was not like other girls._   
Severus knew Lily Evans was different from any girl he had met. She was fierce, smart, funny, and brave in a shy way while she was still honest, loyal, and reliable. Of course she hadn't really shown it to anyone else but himself and Phineas Lluvia. He only wished they knew she was amazing. Phineas only seemed to defend her, a fellow Gryffindor and a female of fantastic looks, but Severus felt Lily could've outlasted Phineas in the real world if she had to.  
"Hi Severus," the redhead smiled, brushing back a curl behind her back and started to take off her rings. Red, green, blue, purple, opal, turquoise... Severus knew the way she took them off because he had memorized it. He saw it everyday. He marveled at the small rocks (real or not) that she decided to slip onto her fingers.  
"Lily," he greeted, hiding any emotion from his voice. She pulled back her curls into what he felt an elegant knot on the base of her neck and bent down over the cauldron, her innocent nose-gem glimmering in the steam producing from the potion. He had imagined kissing that small gem right off her nose and then kissing it onto her lips, the target he had wanted to aim for so long.   
_Well I ain't never been right as I ain't never been wrong   
As everything works out the way it does in this song   
Cause once in a while you get shown in the light   
In the strangest of places if you look at it right_   
Severus knew in that minute he loved Lily Evans.  
She had ditched the rings and her nose-gem but he still loved her, straight-haired and the water from the lake that glimmered against her clear face.  
Even though he had just accused her of dirty blood, he loved the way she glared at Potter. Why did he have to say that? Now she left and he was helpless.  
"Who wants to see me take off Snivellus' pants?" Potter called out and a sound made for the Devil and the Devil only, responded. And when Severus thought that Potter was actually going to do it, he was knocked flat on his back and Severus saw Lily with her wand raised and a look of fury that graced her features too many times before he fell on his head and into unconsciousness.   
_It was the summer of love and I thank the stars above   
Because the women took the lovin' over me   
And just to gain her trust, I bought a microbus   
Because I sold off my personal property _   
He saved every letter she wrote him that summer. He responded enthusiastically, writing as fast as he wished she would respond. He swore he wrote books to her that summer, letters filled with secret longing and a different kind of friendship. She responded with letters just as long, filled with a fantasy and only an imagination she could possess.  
He loved every single letter she wrote. He loved her writing. He loved the way she didn't dot her "i"s and curved at the very bottoms of her "t"s. He could only imagine her face that summer, graced with more freckles than ever and her hair growing more golden as she lounged in the sun.  
If she had asked to use his best phials and his spotless golden cauldron, he wouldn't have even given it a second thought.  
He loved her that much.   
_A tie-dyed dress, she was a psychedelic mess   
We toured to the north, south, east and west   
We sold some mushroom tea, _   
Lily often wore tie-dyed shirts to Hogsmeade visits. He often accompanied her and Phineas (who insisted he call her middle name Destiny but he refused and thus the friendship that could've been) into Honeydukes and the Three Broomsticks and drank butterbeers. With those two, he smoked plenty of cigarettes, drank loads of alcohol, and enough marijuana to clog a person's lungs but he only focused on the redhead, who always passed the cigarette to him first, or offered him the first hit, or gave him the first bottle of vodka.  
He loved her free spirit. He loved her long (and curly) mane of hair and her sun splattered face with the nose-gem he wanted to kiss off. He loved how she was full of the life he had been deprived of. He thought hard on how so many people could dislike this stoned angel in all her glory. And then he came to a conclusion:  
They were all jealous of the light that she beheld and only wished to snatch it away from her.   
_Sold some ecstasy,   
Sold nitrus, opium, acid, heroin and PCP   
Now I hear the police coming after me. _   
He knew he was falling.  
And he knew it was not the good kind of falling. He had been falling into the dreaded black abyss that only the heartbroken had experienced. He knew it was all wrong when she was dubbed Head Girl. And James Potter had been dubbed Head Boy.  
He took all of her attention away from him. He forced purposeless meetings upon her, only to steal her away from Severus. He accomplished on making her laugh. He had somehow snuck his way into her personal bubble because she didn't mind him putting his arm playfully around her shoulders.  
He tried to steal back the spotlight, tried to make her want to talk to him again but she always said she was too busy but Phineas wasn't there to try to defend him. She had disappeared like so many others.  
That's when he realized he wasn't the only one who had fallen in love with the stoned angel he claimed his own.   
_Now I hear the police coming after me   
The one scarlet with the flowers in her hair,   
She's got the police coming after me._   
Years later, he was still falling. Ever since he saw _him_ kiss her, touch her, provide her with the love he was too afraid to show, he would get pushed down harder. Air was always rushing past him and he felt his heart harden, his skin soften, and his brain sharpen. Even after he sent off that forbidden green beam (the same green as her eyes, the same green as her son's eyes) to the only person who gave him a chance after his mother disappeared and after his only love had went off with his worst enemy. He sprinted, trying to run away from the memories that tried to envelope him in one big blur.  
_"Excuse me? Is it alright if I sit here?"  
"Hi, Severus."  
"How'd you come up with those spells all by yourself?"  
"Mejor parte con carne y hueso, Que es, donde Vida no ha entendido."_  
So he took out his anger on her result. On _his_ result.  
All of the bullying, all of the hurt, all of the _love he lost_. The boy had no idea. THE BOY HAD NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT HE HAD TO GO THROUGH.   
Even after the hippogriff chased him off, James Potter's hand on the small of her back was still flashing through his mind.   
_Well there ain't nothing wrong with the way she moves   
All scarlet begonias and a touch of the blues   
And there ain't nothin' wrong with the love that's in her eyes   
I had to learn the hard way just to let her pass by._   
Severus just wished he could've gone back and changed it all. He wished he was never branded or broken or quiet.  
But most of all, he wished he could let go. Because it's pointless to love a dead woman who never even gave him a chance when she was alive.   
  
**Author Notes**: This song was originally written by the Grateful Dead but Sublime rewrote it. I used the Sublime version.  
And _"Mejor parte con carne y hueso, Que es, donde Vida no ha entendido."_ translated roughly into English from Spanish: _ Thoud'st better part with Flesh and Blood, Than be, where Life's not Understood  
_ Which I must give credit to Aphra Behn because that is a line from her poem. 


End file.
